This is a coming of age novel not unlike others where, as a child, he was sold into servitude by seemingly indifferent parents due to his taint of arcane magic in his blood. Magic in a kingdom determined to enslave all those with magic for their own macabre purposes. However, C. J. Aaron does spend an ample amount of time providing a descent MC backstory along with well-written travails and injustices that the young protagonist and those like him have to endure while in captivity.
While, overall, I enjoyed the book, I did grow tired of the repeated and sometimes overwrought lamentations from the MC over knowing the eventual separation from those he had come to think of as family.
Travis Baldree is an absolute treasure at narrating performance and demonstrates that again with this book.